Born and raised in Edmonton, Stead excelled at Track and Field and started to show an interest in music when it was cool to listen and appreciate rap and metal in the locker room. But he has his mother to thank for his now burgeoning career as a folk musician.
As a songwriter, Stead says he has a very organic and spontaneous process which sometimes means his artistic output is firing off in many different directions.
“Sometimes I am too spontaneous because my songs come out in different genres. I have some blues songs and some reggae songs that came out at the same time as the songs for Fear Has No Place Here. When I write it’s always guitar first and then melody and those two things evoke the emotional tone and then that’s when ideas from my life start to come out as lyrics.”